Evolution is not Abiogenesis

Why? So HOW should it be incorporated?I have asked a question multiple times now. Let's see if you actually answer it this time. We all understand that you do NOT accept either abiogenesis nor evolution, so none of your answers will be construed as support for either.Question: We find that God created the first RNA replicator on Earth, and from that RNA replicator all life evolved. How would the theory describing how life evolved from that RNA replicator be different than the theory we have now? You hold a really strange position. When we say they are different theories we are not saying that abiogenesis is not important. We are also saying that the Theory of Relativity is a separate theory from the Theory of Evolution, and guess what? We think the Theory of Relativity is very, very important. We all agree that abiogenesis is a very important area of research and a very important question that science really wants to answer. What we are also saying is how life changed and how life originated are DIFFERENT questions just as how gravity operates (i.e. Relativity) and how life changes are DIFFERENT questions.Additionally, would not knowing about Relaitivity somehow hamper our ability to determine how species change over time? No. In the same way, not knowing how life came about does not hamper our ability to determine how life changed once it was here. THEY ARE DIFFERENT QUESTIONS. To stress this again, when we say different we do not mean that they are important and not important questions. They are DIFFERENT QUESTIONS, each being equally important for understanding what happened in the past and how the universe works. How? Please explain how not knowing how life originated hampers our ability to determine if humans and other apes share a common ancestor?

What is and is not life at this proposed point in history is pretty hazy anyway, but I think most definitions would require inheritance as part of any definition of life. No mechanism of descent, no life. I think we can all agree that we may not be able to apply specific mechanisms of mutation as seen in modern organisms. However, Darwin's original theory did not include these mechanisms either. All that Darwin required was heritable changes.The definition of life and the definition of evolution are tautological. That doesn't make it wrong, however. As SJ Gould pointed out one time, Algebra is also tautological, but it is still right. If we get down to it, our definition of life requires evolution. Something can not be considered alive unless it is capable of evolution. The only way around this that I can see is life that is incapable of producing mutations but is capable of reproduction. Such a species would quickly be outcompeted by life that does evolve, but the situation does exist.

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No. You were right the first time. Hopefully we won't allow this thread to turn into arguing and equivocating over the term evolution, accompanied by "hear no evil" denials by the usual suspects.

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The theory of evolution is about the origin of species.

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Thanks, you've made me read that again with more thought to the semantics.I looked at 'replication with inheritance and selection' and read it as a reasonable definition of life without much reflection. Just figured it was close enough for my purposes. I'm happy to stay out of this definition war lest my ignorance show. All I really meant was that prebiotic evolution wasn't related to the ToE.Mr Jacks comment could be read as you describe but I didn't. If so, I agree with you too. (I'm feeling very agreeable). Misusing the terminology to twist the concepts I've seen a lot of - I know what you mean.Benefit of the doubt - I'm not sure that it should be read like that. Only Mr Jack could confirm or deny that one.

I suppose there's an ancillary question that could be asked in order to help clarify the position:How would any particular mechanism for the beginnings of life - God, aliens, meteors, abiogenesis etc - affect the evolution of a single species? Say the domestic dog from the grey wolf.

I think if we make the assumption that life started from a replicating molecule then separating abiogenesis from evolution is nearly impossible.For Portillo,The reason science makes a distinction between evolution and abiogenesis is that we don't know how life started. All we have are hypotheses and some circumstantial evidence but nothing conclusive. We do have overwhelming evidence for evolution so we have no choice but to separate them. To combine them would be presumptuous on the part of scientists. Edited by Jefferinoopolis, : My proof reader took the day offEdited by Jefferinoopolis, : No reason given.

I think this is deifnitely a "better" or "clearer" explanation than he gave before.Now, I'm not sure if this is what Buz means or not, but reading it simply as a sentience, it seems to be correct. It sounds like it is saying that life has to start, somehow, before evolution can start. This is correct. And if life is to start it must have come from non-life, otherwise, it is not the start of life.Perhaps I'm being too generous here with Buz, and knowing his posting history, it is a very large possibility, but for the moment, his sentence appears to be correct.

Hi Jefferinoopolis, and welcome to the fray. Well that is part of the problem isn't it? What characteristics are necessary before we can say life has developed?

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Message 39: Of course one of the problems here is defining when life actually begins in this process of developing complexity. This is a much bigger question than it first appears - we have had threads on just this issue (see Definition of Life):

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RAZD Message 69: There are examples that we can all agree belong to the category "life" and there are examples that we can all agree belong to the category "non-life" ... and then there are examples where we cannot agree that they belong in "life" or in "non-life" categories, and there are no currently known criteria that can make this distinction.

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Personally, I think the best working definition I've seen, is that life is some physical arrangement of atoms and molecules that is potentially capable of evolution (the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities) and the formation of nested hierarchies of descent.

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Note that this allows self-replicating molecules to meet this definition of life, and this falls into the category of {examples where we cannot agree that they belong in "life" or in "non-life" categories}.

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In one sense you could define life to occur once the mechanisms of evolution come into effect, but even there it is a gray area, not a cut and fast delineation.

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It would be like assembling an alphabet, you can start with a number of letters, but at which point does the protoalphabet become useable?

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Message 25
See wikipedia
Life - Wikipedia
particularly the "conventional definition
Life - Wikipedia

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While there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life exhibits the following phenomena:

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1. Organization - Living things are composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
2. Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
3. Growth - Growth results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
4. Adaptation - Adaptation is the accommodation of a living organism to its environment. It is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
5. Response to stimuli - A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion: the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
6. Reproduction - The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

(bold in the original)

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Thus we may have adaptation (copy error mutation and some selection), and we may have reproduction (replication), but we don't know about response to stimulii, metabolism, etc.It is more than a single step, it is an accumulation of steps that add the different elements that we associate with life.In addition, as NoNukes pointed out in Message 43, we are in danger of equivocating the process of evolution with the theory of evolution:The process of evolution is the change in the frequency distribution and composition of hereditary traits within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities.Likewise, the process of speciation is the division of a parent population into two or more reproductively isolated daughter populations that then evolve independently of each other, and creating diversity.The Theory of Evolution (ToE), stated in simple terms, is that the process of evolution, and the process of speciation, are sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from the fossil record, from the genetic record, from the historic record, and from everyday record of the life we observe in the world all around us. Another analogy would be to say that abiogenesis is like micro(quantum)physics while evolution is like macro(relativity)physics: scientists would love to delineate where one becomes the other, but this has not been done yet. Even when it is done, however, these are likely to remain as branches within the (new) overall theory. One won't grow to swallow the other.Enjoy Edited by RAZD, : more, ps

Evolution doesn't require that assumption. All Evolution assumes is that life exists which seems to be a pretty good assumption. False. We also separate Evolution and Relativity as I explained in a previous post. We separate them because they are DIFFERENT QUESTIONS, not because we know more about Evolution than we know about Relativity. How life started and how life changed over time are two different processes so they are explained by two different theories. Even if we had as much evidence for abiogenesis as we have for evolution they would still be separate theories. It really is that simple.

You are indeed being way too generous.According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/...esis#.22Primordial_soup.22_theory and the Britannica Online Encyclopedia http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/66167/biopoiesis, biopoesis is synonymous with abiogenesis; from Wikidpedia:

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the study of how biological life would arise from inorganic matter through natural processes. In particular, the term usually refers to the processes by which life on Earth has arisen.

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But what you are leaving out is the key phrase from the definition: through natural processes. Now examine our two positions.Our position is that the prerequisite for evolution is the existence of life. Of course this requires, or at least strongly implies, that life had to have started somehow. There is a plethora of ideas for how life could have started, some of which are through natural processes, many (or most) of which are through supernatural processes, and some that postpone that question by having had it transplanted here from elsewhere (eg, the "cosmic slime" mentioned in the original "ten things" list that started that discussion). But the point of our position is that evolution would operate the same regardless of how life had started. Life had to have somehow started, but how it started has no bearing on the question of how evolution works or even whether evolution works.Buz' position, which is a standard creationist position, is that evolution depends on one and only one scenario for how life started: abiogenesis, for which he now substitutes the synonym "biopoesis" and which he had originally referred to as "primordial soup". In his position, if life did not arise through natural processes (vital part of the definition of biopoesis/abiogenesis), then evolution does not exist.So, in summary:
Our position -- if there's no life, then there's no evolution.
Buz' position -- if there wasn't abiogenesis, then there's no evolution.Now, if we were to accept Buz' position as a given, then that would prove abiogenesis:
Premise -- Evolution can only exist if abiogenesis is true.
Premise -- Evolution does exist
Conclusion -- Ergo, abiogenesis is true.Of course, that's a bit of a cheat, but that is the conclusion that Buz' position leads us to.the formation of life from non-living matter .

That is certainly how I originally understood his argument, and it seems likely that that is indeed still what he means. But another possibility is that he just doesn't understand exactly what he's saying. If he understands the word abiogenesis, and biopoesis, to merely mean "life from non-life" as it is generally stated to mean, then his sentence, taken out of context*, is correct.*Since his statement was stated, through another poster, without anything else explaining it, the only context available is our prior understanding of Buz's position. But I certainly get a sense of Buz using words he doesn't completely understand to mean something he's not exactly saying.

I would say that Buz's explanation is better, if and only if he means to include divine creation as abiogenesis.Either way it seems that he has nothing worth saying. If he did mean that, then he is making a trivial point very, very badly. If he didn't then he is simply reiterating his position and there is no advance at all.Given that he brags about his hopelessly bad performance in the original thread how can we expect him to actually do better given a second attempt ?

Yeah, that would be correct. Also correct. Though, if he does mean to include divine intervention in abiogenesis, then I think that's a pretty significant advance for him. It might be a trivial point, made badly, but it's a trivial point he didn't seem to be able to make before. I'm staying out of the "Buz should be able to post in Science fora" debate. That's something that should be left up to him and Percy.

I don't agree that evolution is merely about the origin of species. That is what Darwin discussed, yes, but we've moved on from there - evolution tells us a lot about intraspecific changes and the reasons things are as they are, for example.Evolutionary theory works for any hereditary replicator. That means it probably played a role in abiogenesis. I certainly find the idea that mere chemistry got to life without it implausible.

I seem to be the first person to reply direct to the OP. How odd. I think it might help to try and put oneself in the shoes of the creationist for a little while.For them, this is a debate about origins.
They have a creation story, it accounts for the origins of life, the earth, the universe, languages and mankind. Their modern creation story includes microevolution from created kinds to try to account for the diversity of life.And they view evolution as a rival creation story.
So in their mind, the story must account for the origins of life, the earth, the universe, languages and mankind. They see evolution as a naturalistic (or more commonly, atheistic) origins account. This explains why creationists frequently go on about abiogenesis and the big bang in discussions about biodiversity or adaptation.

You are absolutely correct. however, that doesn't explain why they refuse to accept that evolution does not need abiogenesis even after being told. Hell, even after the biggest names in the creationist game have been told over and over and over (comfort, Ham, Gish, Hovind etc.).